1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a pluggable trust adapter architecture, method and program product for processing communications. Specifically, the present invention allows communications received by an application server in a variety of protocols to be efficiently processed for verification, authentication and/or authorization.
2. Background Art
As electronic business becomes more prevalent, new transports, protocols and messaging mechanisms are continuously being introduced. For example, in a Java 2, Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and Internet Inter-ORB protocol (IIOP) are expanded to allow for Java Message Service (JMS). Currently, services such as Web Services allow publication, discovery and use of such varied services hosted on heterogeneous systems. In these environments, however, each target server will have to process requests that arrive over any of these protocols or transports.
When requests are received on a target server, it is common for security processing to be performed. That is, incoming communications should be validated, authenticated and authorized before full access to the target server and its corresponding network is granted. This security processing helps prevent the target server and network from being the subject of attacks and/or unauthorized access by intruders. To this extent, most of the existing protocols and transports have the built-in capability to carry authentication information of the requester chain. When communications are received, target servers generally perform authentication based on the underlying security mechanisms using standard interfaces such as Java Authentication and Authorization Services (JAAS). Unfortunately, to accommodate the transports and protocols that are based on proprietary mechanisms, the target servers need to be constantly updated.
Heretofore, attempts have been made to address the problems associated with varying protocols. Typically, such attempts required a programmer to hard code the target server with the capability to receive and process communications in various protocols. Such a requirement, however, is both time consuming and costly. Moreover, there is no efficient way for the communications to be processed. That is, the communications are not routed to an appropriate processing “destination” based on their protocols.
In view of the foregoing, there exists a need for a pluggable trust adapter architecture, method and program product for processing communications. Specifically, a need exists for a solution that allows communications in varying protocols to be “security” processed in an efficient manner. A further need exists for a pluggable trust adapter architecture that includes trust adapters, each of which are capable of security processing a communication having a specific protocol. Still yet, a need exists for a channel router that can route a communication to an appropriate interceptor based on the communication's protocol. An additional need exists for the pluggable trust adapter architecture and the channel router to be provided in an application server such as a J2EE application server.